One of the most popular pages on MarylandShakespeare.com lately has been the posting: March 16th – Who is King Henry V and Why is He on Trial? ( Which has some history on Henry V). Where some of the American Supreme Court justices (Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, presiding) were putting King Henry V on trial for his actions during the battle of Agincourt, ( Henry V, now playing at the Sidney Harman Hall). Well’ there were a couple emails sent in asking if I knew what the results were, but all I could say was I had little to no luck tracking down that information. So finally I called the Shakespeare Theatre Company office, and left a voice mail. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours later; they had sent the results.

As a quick side note (And to build up a false sense of tension before the results), I’ve had a chance to talk to and meet several people who work for the STC, and they are some of the most helpful people I have ever met. I swear these people must either get paid some godawful yearly salary, must really love where they work, or are part of some brain washed zombie cult . Cause they are just way to polite!

Anyway’ It’s time for the verdict as reported by Joanne Coutts (Drum roll please).

In a nutshell:

On the question of whether the war was justified the court was split.

On the question of whether Henry V was justified in his slaughter of the French POWs the court decided that he was NOT justified and is therefore liable for unspecified damages to the families.

The audience also voted on whether Henry V was responsible for the killing of the POWs – they were evenly split.